# Converting a 2D black and white image to a 3D model for printing on Linux

Windows has its 3D Builder software which upon importing an image, converts it to a heightmap of the image, aka turning it to a 3D model that can be saved as an stl.

Does Linux have software with similar properties that takes a black and white image and turning it into a 3D heightmap model?

• OpenSCAD is linux compatible, free software. There are a number of facilities to permit heightmap to 3D conversion. The results of "lithophane OpenSCAD" returns many options, and it's difficult to narrow down to the "best" choice, as it's a matter of one's skill set/level of understanding. This would be an answer, but I feel it's incomplete without providing results of the search. "Heightmap OpenSCAD" is another useful search set. Jun 4, 2021 at 22:24

The OpenSCAD surface function will do this. You can feed it a greyscale image or a textfile containing a matrix. Documentation and examples can be found at https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/OpenSCAD_User_Manual/Other_Language_Features#Surface